Guepinia
Guepinia is a genus of fungus in the Auriculariales order. It is a monotypic genus, containing the single species Guepinia helvelloides, commonly known as the apricot jelly or salmon salad. The fungus produces salmon-pink, ear-shaped, gelatinous fruit bodies that grow solitarily or in small tufted groups on soil, usually associated with buried rotting wood. The fruit bodies are up to tall and up to wide; the stalks are not well-differentiated from the cap. It has a white spore deposit, and the oblong to ellipsoid spores measure 9–11 by 5–6 micrometers.
The fungus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere, and has also been collected from South America. Although rubbery, the flesh is edible; it may be eaten raw with salads, pickled, or candied.
Taxonomy
The species was first described and illustrated as Tremella rufa by Nicolaus Joseph von Jacquin in 1778. Elias Magnus Fries later called it Guepinia helvelloides in his Elenchus Fungorum, based on Augustin Pyramus de Candolle's Tremella helvelloides, both being names he sanctioned. This has made Tremella rufa and all names based on it unavailable for use, as they are conserved. Later, Lucien Quélet erected a separate monotypic genus Phlogiotis for Jacquin's species, whereas Julius Oscar Brefeld placed it in Persoon's small genus Gyrocephalus. The proper name for the fungus was debated for some time, as the name Guepinia is a homonym, because it had been used by Toussaint Bastard in 1812 for a genus of flowering plants in the Cruciferae family. To further complicate matters, the generic name Teesdalia, originally considered to have priority over the name Guepinia for the plant genus, was later determined to have been validly published after Guepinia, rendering Teesdalia an illegitimate name. In 1982, changes in the International Code for Botanical Nomenclature gave protected status to all names adopted by Fries in the Elenchus Fungorum, and established Guepinia as the correct genus name.Guepinia is variously classified in the Auriculariales order, with uncertain familial position, or as part of the Exidiaceae family.
The genus is named after French mycologist Jean-Pierre Guépin. The mushroom is commonly known as the "red jelly fungus", or "apricot jelly".
Description
The fruit bodies of Guepinia helvelloides grow singly or in small clumps. Although they can appear to be growing in the soil, their mycelium lives in buried wood. They are tall and wide, spoon- or tongue-shaped, and twisted like a cornet or horn so that they look like a slender funnel, cut out on one side and often with a wavy margin. The fruit bodies are flexible, thick, and smooth on the outer side which they are usually attenuated on the underside into a cylindrical or depressed stem that is up to high and about thick. The stem is normally covered with a white tomentum at the base. The upper side of the fruit body is usually quite sterile or with a few isolated basidia and is slightly verrucose as a result of the densely crowded protruding ends of the hyphae. The sterile and fertile surfaces of the fruit body are almost the same color, transparent reddish-orange to flesh pink or flesh orange, at other times more purplish-red. The fruit bodies usually develop a slightly brownish tinge when they are old. The underside is usually slightly more vividly colored than the upper side. The flesh is gelatinous, softly so in the upper part of the fruit body and with a more cartilage-like consistency in the stem. It has a nondescript odor, and a watery, insignificant taste.The hymenium is developed on the under side of the fruit body. The basidia consist of a globular part to which inflated or elongated epibasidia are attached. In Guepinia, the hypobasidia are egg-shaped to ellipsoid, measuring 12–16 by 9–12 μm, and attached to fibril-like epibasidia that are 20–45 by 3–4 μm. The spore deposit is white, while the spores are 9–11 by 5–6 μm, hyaline, cylindrical to elongated ellipsoid in shape, and have a large oil drop.